by Berry Friesen (May 31, 2016)
The great American extravaganza known as “the campaign for
President” rolls on before our eyes. It
is a spectacle of unparalleled drama, capable of engaging the hearts and minds
of the most determined skeptic.
Sure, this spectacle is ridiculously expensive and a huge
waste of human resources. But how else
does a cynical empire—one that demands our blood and treasure for the private
use of the elite—win our passionate and heart-felt support? Do you think our hearts and minds can be bought on the cheap?
Less sophisticated empires employed crude and coercive
methods to confirm the allegiance of their citizens: loyalty oaths, soldiers in the streets, secret
police to ensure fidelity to the leader for life.
America—the home of Hollywood and Madison
Avenue—knows far better ways to accomplish the same purpose: every four years, enact
a riveting story in front of the citizenry and ask them to decide who wins in the end.
As we follow the story’s twists and turns, we will choose a favorite
character and identify with his/her successes and failures. At the show's conclusion, we'll vote.
And when the story reaches its climactic moment with the
election of a new President of the United States of America, our allegiance to
the corrupt, ravenous and blood-soaked empire will again be confirmed.
What? Do I really mean
to say the endlessly complex and surprising Campaign 2016 is a giant reality
show, stage-managed for the empire’s Machiavellian purposes? Yes, that is exactly what I’m saying.
It’s not such a stretch.
Have we forgotten the elaborate efforts of the empire to win our support for the
criminal assault on Iraq in 2003? The plan was hatched during the Clinton years and given momentum by the terrorism of 9/11 and the anthrax attacks that
immediately followed. These were huge events, but the US government had little
interest in the sort of fact-based investigation routinely conducted by your
local police department after a small-time burglary or mugging. It was all international
drama and intrigue creating a case for invading Iraq.
It’s very important to remember the elaborate hoaxes deployed
to win our support for that particular criminal enterprise: the exiles who came forward with detailed
descriptions of Saddam’s nuclear weapons program, the secret documents showing Saddam’s
importation of Nigerian yellowcake, the aerial photographs of bio-chemical
weapons labs, the endless and inflamed rhetoric from the news media. Yet it all was thoroughly fraudulent.
Similarly, it’s very important to remember the huge expense
and elaborate planning that has gone into concocting first al-Qaeda and then
ISIS as existential threats to the safety of the USA.
Such operations are endlessly complex, very
expensive and highly demanding. Do we
really think all of that expertise is only deployed over there, across the
waves? Do we really imagine those tools
of deception are not trained on us too?
So we have Donald Trump, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie
Sanders, each winning passionate support and renewing our hopes for the
empire. Is each of them aware that they
have been cast in leading roles in the great American reality show? We can’t be sure, but we can be sure of two
things: each wants to win the
presidency and each is aware of the rules of the contest.
What rules? First and
foremost, all serious contenders must assume the righteousness of imperial purposes, the beneficial effect of US domination. That’s why
we hear almost nothing from Trump, Clinton or Sanders about renouncing the one
thing that sets the tone for everything else:
full-spectrum domination of the world.
Everything is fair game for debate but that.
Bernie Sanders may yet be the Democratic nominee. It all depends on the results of the investigation
of Clinton’s email practices, a matter firmly within the control of a key
imperial operative, the FBI. Whether it’s
Sanders or Clinton is a small matter in the scope of things; what’s really important
is that via their competition, millions of Americans have become newly invested
in America. And that through their explicit and/or implicit support for US imperialism (joined by Trump, of course), American discontent will focus on anything but the root of America's problems: US militarism and aggression abroad.
Back in March, I predicted Donald Trump would
be the next President. He’s perfect for
an empire that specializes in the blurring of the line between pretense and
reality, has just the skill set to win back the allegiance of a huge and deeply
jaded slice of the American population, and is suited by temperament to the
king-of-the-hill spirit of empire.
Of course, we are the targets of this grand seduction. As I’ve said many times in this blog, what
the empire needs from us is legitimacy; it is what transforms the empire’s brutality
into the empire’s justice. Imperial legitimacy
is what this election—and every presidential election—is about.
Does it really matter to you who next serves as the face of the
empire? Do we really have a dog in this
fight? Think about it.
